A couple of weeks ago I stopped by at our publisher’s offices (Sys-Con Media) and they showed me our Flex book with the correct cover, but all pages were blank. Yesterday, I’ve got an email from them with the words, “Yakov your book is ready, stop by and pick it up”. The guys from production department are really nice, so they’ve attached this video just to show me that the book is really really finally super-duper ready. Check this out (the video file is large though).
The book was officially announced over here, and first will be shipped to hundreds and hundreds of people who pre-ordered the book. BTW, people who will purchase the book online should get the PDF version of the book right away, and will receive the printed version as well.
Sys-Con packages the book with a DVD that in addition to the source code of the book samples includes the video of all presentations from the Flex Seminar that took place last Summer in New York City. This package costs $69 USD. I’m sure some people will say, it’s still expensive. I have two answers to this, pick the one you like:
1. We (the authors) did not set the price
2. Anatole, Victor and I spent a year (in addition to regular work) writing this first advanced book on Flex, and I personally believe that it worth every penny.
If you are planning to attend the AJAXWorld in March, the book will be sold cheaper there, plus we’ll participate in the book signing event and will run one day hands-on Flex bootcamp one day before the conference. Stop by to say hello, and enjoy the reading!
Yakov Fain
Vadim Melnik said,
March 2, 2007 @ 5:09 am
My congratulations with new book, it’s incredible!
Vadim.
Jamie Badman said,
March 2, 2007 @ 5:44 am
Woohoo… just ordered mine as soon as I read this – particularly because of the PDF download – I’m not the patient sort!
Regarding the price, the chapter on DataGrid alone is worth the price of the book.
(Incidently, page 503 refers to diagram 11.15 when it should refer to 11.17 in the Pivoted DataGrid section and btw – VERY cool idea!).
Anyway… that’s $69 well spent…
Jamie.
Yakov Fain said,
March 2, 2007 @ 7:20 am
Jamie,
I’m glad you like the Chapter 11 on Advanced use of Datagrid. I’m sure other people will get to a similar conclusion. For beginners, Chapter 4 is a gem (80 pages of various small sample applications),
I’m in love with Chapter 7 (is there a definition for a man being in love with a book chapter?) that shows how to build data management components.
Chapter 15 on communication with external applications (about a hundred pages for some serious sh*t on Flex/Excel communication) can be used as a PhD Thesis (once again, thank you Valery Silaev for your invaluable help with this chapter).
Any Flex consultant who does not buy the book today, starts loosing money now, because this book helps with work on any real-world Flex project (BTW, knowledge of Java is not required, but understanding of object-oriented programming is a must). Being a consultant myself, I do not leave home without the book’s PDF and the source code
Anyway, enjoy the book.
Yakov
P.S. Thank you for submitting the type. I’m sure there will be some other minor thingies to fix and we’ll set up the Errata page on the book’s site.
Dan Wilson said,
March 2, 2007 @ 9:55 am
Yakov,
I just ordered your book through the syscon link. I don’t mind the price, especially for the value, what I did not like was the silly registration survey I had to take.
I just wanted to order the book, not sign up for adverts or solicitation emails from SysCon.
If there are other channels to purchase the book, it might be nice to let the customers know.
DW
Jason said,
March 2, 2007 @ 10:23 am
Yakov,
I pre-ordered some time ago and an eagerly awaiting the book and CD! Is there a way for those of us that pre-ordered to get the PDF?
Thanks and congratulations!
Jason
Yakov said,
March 2, 2007 @ 11:36 am
@Dan – I’m the wrong person to answer your survey comment. Please contact Sys-Con directly
@Jason – AFAIK, Sys-Con was planning to start charging the credit cards of people who pre-ordered the book in two weeks. If you want it to happen earlier so you’ll get the pdf, please contact production at sys-con dot com
Jason said,
March 2, 2007 @ 11:48 am
Do you have an email or phone number for sys-con production? I can only find a fax number on their website. It’s really too bad that people that pre-ordered months ago are not among the first to receive the pdf.
Jason
Yakov said,
March 2, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Jason, please re-read my previous response – the email is there
judah said,
March 10, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Awesome. I have been thrown into the den of Java developers and this looks to save me. My first reaction to the title “Adobe Flex and Java” makes me wonder does it only cover Java through the use of FDS or does it cover environments like Struts, Tiles, JSP, Actions, Servlets, etc?
Bruce said,
April 21, 2007 @ 8:24 pm
When will the errata page be available on the book’s website. I checked today (April 20th) and could not find it. I’m having problems with the code in chapter 5 and believe there are some changes that need to be made (I’ve emailed you about these).